World After War
by Impossibly Eclectic Duck
Summary: An ageing and lonely Narcissa gives in to her wish to reconcile with her long-estranged sister, Andromeda. But is Andromeda willing to become friends again with those who were involved in the death of her family? Can the two women re-establish the bonds that had been broken so long ago? I don't own any of the characters except three minor original characters. The usual disclaimer.


**Chapter One**

 **The Leaky Cauldron**

" _Cissy, look - it's alright now, open your eyes and look!"_

The world was on fire. She was standing in the heart of it as emerald flames swirled around her, flurries of ash clouding her sight, smoke filling her throat and making her veins throb and ache. _Help me!_ She wanted to scream, but the ash was too much for her. Every time she opened her mouth, screams in other voices came out, and she cried out like a creature possessed. Screams of children tore into her skull, and then came the long shadows rippling through the air, eating up the sounds and replacing them with a silence deadlier than any agonized shriek. And in that hollow incoherence, the pillars of her world giving way, crumbling on top of her…

"Mum!"

Draco's shout jolted her awake.

"The Leaky Cauldron," said Draco, loudly and firmly into the flames. The flames and the smoke cleared immediately, and the plain iron grate of a fireplace in that old inn appeared before her. Draco moved around her in order to emerge from the fire first, and then helped Narcissa to her feet. "You're shaking," he told her.

The voice of her son, the hands that she had helped to shape, restoring the world to normalcy, just as it should always have been. Narcissa tried to stop coughing and looked hard at him. "You look a little white, too," she told him. It was true: droplets of sweat dotted his pale brow, and his hands were cold in spite of the fire they had just come out from.

Draco nodded curtly, and turned to help his wife out from the fireplace. Nothing in her features showed any sign that she had seen Narcissa react like that. She was dusting down the front of her skirt for traces of ash when a woman a little older than her greeted her. Astoria spoke to her as if they had been friends since childhood.

"No, we'll just be on our way, Hannah, thanks," Draco was telling her. "Maybe we'll have tea here before we head back. We'll be here for a long time today. Expect us to be tired and hungry at the end of it."

"I'll keep a table for you," the proprietess of the inn promised him. "Sure you won't have a drink before you go?"

"I will… stay for a little while," said Narcissa, cursing her voice for choosing exactly this moment to crack. It seemed there were traces of smoke still in her throat, making it difficult for her to speak. Draco stared at her in astonishment. "A cup of tea would be nice, I suppose," she pressed on. "Something to steady my nerves - fire unsettles me a little nowadays, I find."

"Of course," said Hannah, looking at her as serenely as she might look at a child before slipping away.

Draco fidgeted with the lapels of his coat. "Let's just wait here, then, shall we? We still have… how long until the Cankerguards -"

"Kierkegaard," corrected Astoria in her deep voice. "Arnold and Ilse Kierkegaard, and Ilse's sister, Sissel Frost. And no, we don't have much time, unfortunately."

"But - wasn't it -"

"We really have to be on our way, Draco," said Astoria in a sympathetic but strict tone that, Narcissa knew, worked well on her son. "It's their first time in London, and they're relying on us to show them around, help them get comfortable here. We don't want to keep them waiting, do we?"

Draco nodded sulkily and looked at Narcissa. "How long will you be here?" he asked. "How will you find us?"

"It's Diagon Alley!" laughed Astoria. "Surely she can find us somewhere. Stop worrying and let her be."

Narcissa glared at Astoria. How could she assume that she had the right to speak on behalf of her? That Draco allowed her to speak for him all the time should not mean that Narcissa would let her do so as well. It was most annoying. But Astoria did not pay her any attention. "Do go on," she urged Draco. "I'll be with you in a moment."

Draco obeyed mutely and went on his way, disappearing into the Sunday crowd at the inn. Astoria turned to Narcissa and, shockingly, took her hands and squeezed them. "Good luck!" she whispered. There was not the slightest trace of sarcasm or malice in her brilliant smile. "We'll take our time, and you take yours." She let go of her hands, and eyeing her meaningfully, headed for the door. Narcissa stared at her back, dumbfounded.

Something was tucked deep into her hands. Narcissa found a little piece of paper folded into a neat square. She did know how it had come to be there - unless Astoria had placed it there as she held her hands. She unfolded the paper and squinted to read it in the low light. It was an address in the northern outskirts of London, and under it was written, in Astoria's hand, a name: 'Andromeda Tonks'.

Terror shot through her. Hastily she crumpled the paper and looked around. The inn seemed unreal, with the sooty stone arcades vaguely outlined in the smoke and glow of the coal fires, and the shifting mass sometimes ablaze in the sulfurous blue light pouring through the high windows, or plunged into burnt red shadow. There was no saying who could be present there, perhaps watching her even now as she clutched her bag tightly, noting the changes in her expression. She must be calm and pay more attention to the faces. What do they mean? Who are they? Are they watching her?

"Madam Malfoy!" she heard Hannah Abbott call, and almost cursed aloud in frustration. That block-headed woman had just announced her presence to anyone listening. "Ma'am, I've been looking for you," said Hannah, now at her side. "Would you like a table by the window?"

Hannah escorted Narcissa to a table and summoned the tea from the counter. Narcissa understood that the proprietess was doing her best to help her; she and Astoria knew each other well and for quite some time, it seemed. It would be a disgrace if she did not do enough for the mother-in-law of her friend. 'Friend' - just that word made Narcissa want to laugh. She wanted to be alone, and perhaps Hannah Abbott realised it, too, because she left quite quickly.

Narcissa felt tired, too soon. No amount of sadness or longing she suffered daily could bolster her against the pure dread gnawing at her innards. It drained her out and made her want the seclusion of her rooms at Malfoy Manor more than anything else. But she knew she would regret it if she went back without doing what she had come here to do. She had already come so far that going back would make her a coward in her own eyes, and she could never live with that notion. She had been brave, yes, when she had faced the Dark Lord and lied to him; she had been brave when she had waited outside the Wizengamot all those years ago, carrying Draco in her arms as she waited to hear Lucius's doom. She liked to think that it was her little son who had given her strength in those moments. She was his mother; she could do anything for him. But could her son do the same for her? What did it matter, anyway? Draco could not help her where she was going. She would have to do this alone. This needed a different kind of courage. She was not sure she had it in her, but she would not give up without trying.

She took too much time pouring tea, and sipped it even more slowly. She could feel the steady drip of time, and it sickened her. She watched the crowd, wondering if she might find a familiar face somewhere, or perhaps a hidden camera. The flash of a camera would give away the person, though, so perhaps he would not use one if he wanted to remain hidden. What would Hannah Abbott say if someone complained to her about being spied on while in her inn? Hannah Abbott! - Why was she even thinking of approaching _her_ for help? Narcissa shook her head, wrapping her fingers more securely around the tea cup. It was not the most elegant way of holding it, but she was past caring.

 _Try not to think. Stay calm, look around you._ Perhaps it was just the anxiety of being in a public place all alone. Not that she had ever experienced any social anxiety before, but then again, this was the first time she was venturing out from Malfoy Manor in years. The last time she had visited anyone was when she had visited the Greengrasses with Lucius, just before Draco's wedding. The memory of it made her sigh. They had all been so young - there had been rumours that Draco had begun wooing Astoria while she was still in Hogwarts. Someone - a woman, but she could not remember her face - had laughed that it was a miracle Astoria had passed her N.E. brilliantly while in the full throes of young love. It had been a surprise, just as everything else about Astoria had been. She was about as similar to, and different from, her older sister Daphne as Andromeda had been from Bellatrix. But everything about this girl was a shock and a disgrace - everything, from her clothes to her mannerisms to the flowers she wore in her hair had screamed 'Muggle'. Narcissa could not imagine the Greengrasses having a daughter like her. No wonder Madam Greengrass had been so surprised that Draco had chosen her over Daphne. Lucius had only agreed to the marriage when Draco had threatened to remain a bachelor for the rest of his life.

Thinking about those days did not make Narcissa happy. She could not understand most people's fascination with the past - although a fair number of those she knew had sobered up significantly after the final fall of the Dark Lord. The rest of them were dead. Thinking about those days made her feel helpless and wretched; she kept hoping she could do something about them, change and repair events. That was, of course, impossible. But she could dream.

Things had changed so much since then that sometimes, she looked around her and wondered if she was still living in the same world as she used to. Lucius died - three years ago. He had suffered a stroke and collapsed on the stairs, his body rolling down to a final stop at the base of the stairs like an empty goblet. She remembered his face - contorted with agony, blood oozing menacingly from his nose, his eyes glazed and unseeing. He had lost all his hair by then. Narcissa had searched in her heart for grief, yearning, anger, bitterness, any emotion at all - but found nothing. It horrified her, but it was the truth. Ultimately, she had had the portrait of Lucius Malfoy removed from her rooms; Draco had placed it in his study. Draco, who she thought would be the image of his father with age, was disappointing her again. He was getting _portly_ \- it seemed that he was getting heavier by the day, his waist widening and his jaw getting rounder. The weight did not look good on him. It did not help that he was nearly bald by now. Lucius had grown very thin by the time of his death, so it seemed that Draco was gaining his appearance from his grandfathers, both of whom had been fat men. Narcissa felt disgusted thinking of the resemblance.

Astoria, on the other hand, looked scarcely a day older than she had been when she had married Draco. Today, she was wearing a perfectly cut coat over a dress of fine silk, both flaming orange in colour, with a gold and peridot brooch shaped like a sunburst. She had compensated for her lack of friends among Purebloods such as them with connections all over the world. She had pen-friends in France, Romania, Algeria, Russia, and other places with names too strange for her to remember. The people she had brought Draco to meet today hailed from Denmark. Narcissa knew better than to ask about their blood status. It never seemed to matter to Astoria, who could speak as sweetly to a common Muggleborn as to a highly placed Pureblood. It mortified Narcissa, and she knew that it had the same effect on others as well. She had seen several people staring at her, wide-eyed and baffled, as she went her way during a party. But what truly upset her was the unfairness of it all. Many people who would have been unhappy with a woman like Astoria in other times, who would have been positively scandalised to list her as one of their acquaintances, had no problems with her relationships nowadays. Poor Mr. Greengrass, totally dependent on his younger daughter now that Daphne had gone to France with her husband, preferred to turn a blind eye to her actions. So, Astoria Malfoy breezed through life with a smile she used indiscriminately. She was always smiling - it burned Narcissa to see that on her, an expression of such reckless glee that drew people to her like flies to the smell of rot. She shook her head to drive away the image and concentrated on her immediate surroundings.

Quite some time seemed to have passed, and the crowd appeared a little thinner than the last time she noticed. The tea had turned cold, and her legs were starting to fall asleep. Impatience seethed within her and she rose to her feet, ignoring the sharp pain shooting down her calves. Someone would notice the things lying idle on the table and come back to clear them away. That was not the most important task on the list. Besides, she realised she had not given much thought to the most important question of all - how did Astoria come across the address of Andromeda Tonks? How had she guessed that Narcissa was thinking of visiting her? If Astoria had not given her that address, Narcissa might have found her still, asking for help from the Post Office. She had even been prepared to go to the Ministry if necessary, and perhaps Confound the people she spoke to after getting the information she wanted. It was still too risky, and she could not help feeling a little grateful to Astoria for handing her the address and sparing her all that trouble. But how did she know in the first place? Not even Draco had known of her plans. And what would she do later, now that she knew something so dangerous about Narcissa? How might she use that to her advantage?

"Are you leaving, Ma'am?"

Narcissa spun around to find Hannah just behind her, staring at her. She had quite an unremarkable face, but her brown eyes were surprisingly warm.

"Yes - yes," Narcissa murmured, unsure of what to say. "Yes, I'll be on my way. What are you doing here? Did you have something to tell me?"

"Oh, no, I was just checking if you needed anything." Hannah was staring too hard at her. Narcissa looked away and moved past her.

"Have a nice day, Ma'am," said Hannah from behind her.

Narcissa walked slowly down the corridor and found herself at the doorway. Over her, a little to the side, hung the sign for _The Leaky Cauldron_. But that was all she recognised. She looked at the city in front of her, and wished she had skipped the tea. Too many Muggles, with their queer contraptions and not-so-strange manners - laughing, shouting, rushing past, never seeing her. _This is not my world. What shall I do here? How will I ever find her?_

But thinking of the world behind her, she wondered if she knew that one, either. Perhaps she had never known it. She tried closing her eyes and shutting off her senses, and tried to look for her home - but there was none. She saw Malfoy Manor, with its time-honoured masonry and its gardens, always in full bloom, with a few of those white peacocks Lucius used to love so much. Farther still, she saw her childhood house. They just stood there, like so many insane faces gathered on a desolate shore, who could never understand a word of what she might be thinking. She thought of Draco and Astoria strolling down Diagon Alley, hand in hand, looking at a place that seemed to have had shed its skins and decked itself anew overnight. She could see them chatting with faceless figures in weird clothes, and she could see Lucius dozing in his portrait, oblivious to the slightly musty darkness in the study and the silence in the manor. That was all he ever did within those gilded frames. Perhaps it was for the best. She had always found the prospect of being examined by a dead man disconcerting.

But was there really a reason to what she was about to do? Visiting Andromeda after so many long years, almost on a whim, a dirty wish she had nursed ever since reading that interview of hers in _Witch Weekly_ three months ago - would it not be digging up the past? When had the past brought her anything but sorrow? _But this isn't just about the past. I need to see her again. I need to talk to her. I must forgive her before I die. I can't die knowing that I have unfinished business with my sister - for she_ is _my sister. Though she may not like that fact - and she did, indeed, betray us all - the same blood flows in our veins. She might very well slam the door in my face, but I'll die knowing that I tried to make things right again. My failure would not be for lack of trying._

Narcissa found the little slip of paper and unfurled it, reading the address closely, trying to engrave it into her memory. Goodness knew her memory had already started failing her - one of the first sure signs of age. When she was finally sure, she took a deep breath and turned on the spot, vanishing into thin air.


End file.
